Monday, August 22, 2016

Monday at the Movies - August 22, 2016

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.”

The Gift (2015) – Hands up if you’ve heard of this film? I suspect not many people are aware of this, Joel Edgerton’s directorial debut in which Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall (two favorites around these parts) play Simon & Robyn Callem, a married couple who relocate to California, where they meet Gordon (Edgerton), an old acquaintance of Simon’s. Husband and wife have varying perceptions of Gordon, disagreeing over whether he’s a lonely friend or a creepy stalker, which unearths latent tensions in the Callem household. That’s a pretty guarded plot summary, because one of the great delights of The Gift is its unpredictability. This movie takes so many bizarre turns and veers into more than a few strange directions that it’d really be criminal to divulge too much in advance. Suffice it to say that Edgerton – who pulls triple duty on acting, directing, and writing – has put together something quite compelling and unsettlingly unique. As ever, Bateman brings his expert comedic timing to bear, but he gets to display here more than most places I’ve seen him (excepting, perhaps, This Is Where I Leave You) how deft he can be with more serious acting roles. Hall is sufficiently unsettled as Bateman’s beleaguered spouse, while Edgerton walks the line between genuine and disturbing in a way that recalls classic flicks like Fatal Attraction or more recently Enduring Love. I’m surprised that this flew under the radar, considering its critical reception and its star power and its overall success as a thriller.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

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